So often in life, we take for granted what is the most important to us, indeed what we love the most. We take our health for granted until we get sick. We take family for granted, until someone is taken from us. And so it is with the things of God: he who we love above all things, so often becomes he who we take the most for granted. From 1928 to 1937 in China, the Communist Party of China had an army – called the Red Army- who led the campaign on the desecration of Catholic Churches throughout the country. The TRUE story is told of how they arrived at a small provincial Church and began to destroy it: pulling down various statues and religious art. They took the ciborium from the Tabernacle, and went outside, where they cast the ciborium on the ground, and the consecrated hosts inside scattered across the ground.
This of course was decades before the First Vatican Council, at a time when our Catholic Tradition held the faithful to a tighter regiment when it came to the Eucharist. The faithful were not allowed to receive more than once per day, lest they take this great gift for granted. And no one dared to touch the host, receiving always on the tongue. In light of such intense devotion, you can imagine the absolute horror of the priest as he watched these events unfold. The priest was taken away and arrested, locked in a nearby building, intentionally placed close enough to be able to look upon the desecrated Blessed Sacrament as it lay in the dirt. As the soldiers cleared away and the priest sat and wept, he watched as suddenly a little girl from the parish came upon the scene, dropped to her hands and knees, and bending to the ground stuck out her tongue, and reverently consumed one of the hosts from the dirt.
She came back each day, first thing in the morning while the soldiers in the area were still resting, and would repeat this devoted, and faithful act, day after day: getting down in the dirt, and consuming just one host, picking it up off the ground with her tongue. When there was only one host remaining, she returned and dropped to her hands and knees as she had so many times before, and bent down to consume the final host. This time however, she accidently made a noise that roused the nearby troops. They captured her, and beat her to death with their rifles.
There will not be a homily given anywhere in the world tonight that will express what the message that little girl preached by her actions, and by her death. That little girl demonstrates for us in the extreme, the reality of what is happening when we talk about this thing we call “Holy Communion”: it is a mutual and complete outpouring of self between us and Jesus Christ. As such it is the sacrifice that seals the new and eternal covenant between God and his people.
The eternal and glorious God: who brought about all of creation with his word, who parted the Red Sea to free his people Israel, who fashioned and designed a plan for our redemption when the first of our race had outright rejected him- the one true God- emptied himself of the glory of heaven and took flesh, to become a baby…to come into the world like you and I. He had to learn the prayers of his people. He had to learn a trade to make a living. He stood in the village square as a day laborer day after day. He experienced loneliness and anxiety, as well as human loss and sorrow. He empties himself of the glory of heaven to embrace a human life like you and me.
As if that were not union enough, he empties himself again, allowing himself to be delivered into the hands of sinful men, where he binds himself to us even more deeply by suffering the pains of death so that you and I can one day enjoy the glory that he had left behind- the glory that Adam and Eve took so flippantly for granted. In that sacrifice upon the cross, Jesus fulfills his life’s meaning- his entire purpose for existence- to empty himself for us.
So much does he love us, that he wants every single one of us to be able to share in that moment of heaven’s victory- to taste that moment when one of our own race does what none of us could ever do, yet try so hard to do: conquer Satan and this world. So much does he love us that he wants us to share in that moment so that we can know him in the very depth of who he is.
So he leaves us the Eucharist…so much does he love us.
He empties himself, YET AGAIN. He entrusts to sinful mankind the ability – through the ministerial priesthood- to bask in the glory of the cross by pouring out that entire reality of EVERYTHING THAT HE IS in the Eucharist.
How much do we take this great gift for granted?
Everything poured out on the Cross is poured out for us in the Eucharist- everything that happens at the Cross happens at every Mass! There Jesus empties himself totally and completely in an outpouring of love, mercy, and forgiveness. That means that at every Eucharist we stand at the foot of the Cross in communion with Mary, his mother, who stands as the perfect model and exemplar of Christian life, and he empties himself by handing her over to us – she who he chose from the beginning of time. He empties himself in his simple declaration “I thirst”- as he uses his final breath to spit out those two words that express not a desire for a drink – but rather a desire for us. He thirsts for you and for me…he longs for us, even while choking for his final breath. He knows your every sin and imperfection…he knows your every strength and every talent…he knows your every thought and desire…even the deepest and darkest of them…and he literally pants for you from the cross, as every single one of us passes through his divine mind and he spits out those two words that should rattle us to the very core of our being: I thirst.
He longs to love you: like you’ve never been loved before, and never can be loved again…and all of that longing, all of that thirst, is poured out for us in the Eucharist.
That’s why a little girl would risk her own life to crawl in the dirt and pick up the consecrated hosts one by one with her tongue: to pour out herself for him who did the same for us!
Bound up in the Eucharistic mystery is the Priesthood: the vocation that assures that this great gift of love can continue for all of human history. To consecrate the Eucharist is not a “power that priests have,” it’s the responsibility, and natural consequence, of being conformed to Christ crucified! If the priest stands in the person of Christ then as he speaks those words of Jesus he empties himself into that bread and into that cup, and Jesus empties himself through him, because if that love of God that was poured out upon the world on the cross does not continue to be outpoured across history then the sacrifice of Calvary was in vein.
Saint John Vianney once said “the Priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus.” Such a powerful thought. The Eucharist is that beating, merciful, Marian, and thirsting heart of Jesus: and the Priesthood is its love, because the priesthood ensures that heart continues to beat. The Priesthood is a Eucharistic life: a life dedicated to complete and total self-emptying- because no other kind of love can come from that heart. Being the love of the heart of Jesus is a nearly impossible task for sinful man: which is precisely why our priests need our constant prayers!
On this most holy night, priests throughout the world will imitate the actions of Jesus, remove their outer garment, tie a towel around their waist, and crawl around on the floor washing the feet of his disciples. Tonight every priest is reminded in a powerful way, that the cross to which they have been conformed is the greatest act of service in human history, and that their lives are given to serve. The washing of the feet is a Eucharistic moment, as the Priest once again steps into the shoes of Jesus, and in keeping with his instruction, do as he told us to do…and this simple act is intended to be a gesture of that self-emptying.
No priest can rightly put into words how much they love the Priesthood, or what this life of service and Eucharist means to them. Nor can they ever fully articulate how incredible this gift of the Eucharist is that Jesus has given us. They can’t put it into words – because none of it belongs to us: it’s all his. So rather then put it into words, tonight priests put it into action. It may not be as dramatic as the action of that little girl in China, but without a doubt its meaning is the same: as priests throughout the world repeat his actions, and wash the feet of his disciples.